In certain types of equipment, such as earthmoving vehicles, numerous vehicle components are located beneath the operator's cab. To perform maintenance and tests upon those components, it is desirable to gain access to the area beneath the cab. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,178 to York et al, issued Oct. 11, 1977, has disclosed a structure for pivotally mounting the operator's cab on the vehicle frame so that the cab may be relatively easily moved to gain access to the components below the cab.
Some prior vehicles used cables on all of the controls except the brakes. The motion required to operate the brakes dictated the use of a solid linkage, which linkage became non-functional upon tilting the cab. In order to apply the brakes with the cab tilted, it was necessary to disconnect the linkage whereupon a spring applied the brakes.
Several patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 3,259,203 to Ryskamp issued July 5, 1966, U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,522 to Dence issued July 25, 1967, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,892,294 to Nieminski issued July 1, 1975, have disclosed mechanisms which automatically apply a vehicle's brakes when the operator's seat is tilted, such devices being intended to prevent the vehicle from moving when the operator is out of the cab. However, these mechanisms involve use of separate brake actuating systems from those used during vehicle operation, thus requiring costly installation of two separate actuating systems. Further, these mechanisms would not operate automatically upon tilting the entire operator's cab.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more problems found to exist in the above equipment.